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| His Nibs at Historicon with his Battle of Trenton game Best of Show Award winner at this year's Historicon |
I returned home yesterday from the Historicon convention and I'd like to report that it was successful show for me on a number of levels.
My Battle of Trenton game won the Best of Show Award for the convention and I am very honored to have been considered amongst many other worthy war games. I also won a PELA award for my game. PELA = Pour Encourager Les Autres (for the encouragement of others).
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| The Best of Show Award presented to me for my Battle of Trenton game. |
The convention theme was the 250th Anniversary of the American Revolution and birth of the United States so of course I had to select and AWI game to host at the convention. I was looking to do something different this year and get away from the large multi-table games with 54mm soldiers. I wanted to do a game on one table this year so that I wouldn't have to pack everything into the back end of a truck to haul it from Chicago to Pennsylvania.
So I selected the Battle of Trenton on Christmas Day Eve in 1776 because it was possibly the turning point in the American Revolution. Combined with the Battle of Princeton several days later, historians call this time The Ten Crucial Days of the Revolution. I hosted four Trenton games and one Princeton game over the period Thursday through Saturday and all of them were booked full with 8 players for each Trenton game and 7 players for the Princeton game.
Here are some pictures of my Trenton game.
For me, the main thing for a convention game is to have all of the player slots full or close to full. For example, I could have easily run the Trenton game with 6 players (or even 4!) rather than the 8 listed on the program.
Two of my four Trenton games were a "what if" alternative history called "Now Let's Go Surprise Mr. Washington". The premise was that Colonel Rall of the Hessian garrison at Trenton took the rumors of an American attack seriously and so reinforcements from nearby Bordentown, NJ (Hessians) and Princeton (British flank company troops) had arrived at Trenton prior to the start of the battle. Washington wasn't expecting the Trenton garrison to be reinforced so the Americans had a more difficult time securing a win. My recollection is a bit foggy but I believe that the British/Hessian army won at least one of the alternative history battles.
The other two Trenton battles followed the historical orders of battle and both games were American victories. In the final Trenton game, the outcome depended on one Hessian regiment escaping the town over the Assunpink Creek Bridge. Whoever moved first on the next turn would be the winner, so rather than run another game turn, I had both sides roll a D10 die and whoever won that got the initiative first. Had the Hessians won the die roll, they would have been able to march the regiment over the bridge to safety and a game win. If the Americans won the initiative die roll, they would have moved first and charged into the rear of the Hessian regiment that was trying to march over the bridge. This would have destroyed the Hessian unit, resulting in an American victory.
The Americans won the initiative die roll and so I ended the game there declaring an American victory. That was a fun game with the outcome coming down to a single roll of one D10 die.
The Battle of Princeton game was a decisive American victory. The Americans had a substantial advantage in numbers ( 4 brigades of infantry) over the British (3 regiments plus an assortment of light companies and grenadier companies and dismounted dragoons). The Americans used their numbers to break through the center and right flank of the British army. The British held sway on their left flank and so that contingent probably would have retreated back to Princeton.
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| The Battle of Princeton game that I hosted |
As you can see from the game pictures, the games featured the Winter terrain that I have been featuring on this blog over the past several months. One doesn't often see a game with complete Winterized terrain so this sort of made the terrain stand out from other games.
Much of my terrain was inspired by Pat Smith's book, "Setting the Scene -Winter Terrain". Pat has a blog called Wargaming With Silver Whistle and he wrote two books, one covering Mediterranean terrain and the other covering the Ardennes terrain for the Battle of the Bulge. He provides step by step instructions for making roads, trees, ice streams and snow covered buildings. This book was very handy and it gave me the confidence to give it a try.
I met some interesting people at the show:
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| Der Alte Fritz meets Goober the Traveling Bear |
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| Fritz and Kevin of The Chuckleheads group discussing strategery. |
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| Fritz and one of his Fife and Drum customers |
I big thank you goes out to my many blog readers who took the time to stop by and say hello. It is always nice to match up a face with a name and your many kind comments give me the encouragement to keep on blogging about the hobby.
I also want to thank the 40 people who played in my five games during the convention. They were all gentlemen and really got into playing their roles as American generals or Hessian officers. This is what makes the games fun for me.
I will post several more Historicon reports over the course of this week so that I can spread out the pictures over several days.
Thank you for reading and following my blog. I am honored by your support.
